Patch 5.2 Valor Gear
Patch 5.2 brings us new gear purchased with Valor Points from the Shado-Pan Assault. They will offer a variety of item level 522 gear starting from Neutral reputation all the way up to Revered. Reputation is earned mostly from killing raid bosses, including LFR bosses.

Pandaria, her hills of gold
In dark and mournful times of old
Did once a hopeless horror hold

When from her sacred vale did spring
With storm and flash, a monstrous thing!
His name, Lei Shen: The Thunder King.

World of Warcraft Path 5.2: The Thunder King is almost here. The Kirin-Tor Offensive, led by Jaina Proudmoore, and the Sunreaver Onslaught, championed by Lor’themar Theron, are converging on the Isle of the Thunder King to topple the first emperor before he can wreak havoc across Pandaria. Their campaign will march slowly across the island, unlocking new content over time.

We’re ready to test the full breadth of the island, and that’s where you come in: Players who participate on the Public Test Realm can enjoy an accelerated unlock schedule, blasting from the beach to the shores and into the Thunder King’s inner citadel in a matter of a few short weeks. By participating, you’ll be a great asset to Jaina and Lor’themar. More importantly, you’ll help us knock out any nasty problems with the island and its progression before we go live.

Transfer over a character and report to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms for instructions !

Below is a tentative unlock schedule. This is of course subject to change and does not reflect patch release dates.

Active – PTR set to stage 0. The Sunreavers and Kirin-Tor will besiege the island from offshore. Feb 8 – PTR set to Stage 1. You’ll be able to conquer a foothold on the island itself.Feb 12– PTR set to stage 2. With your help, Jaina and Lor’themar will blast the walls and infiltrate the outer city.Feb 15– PTR set to stage 3. Daring players can infiltrate the mines and blast open the doors to the Thunder Forge. Feb 19 – PTR set to stage 4. Block further Zandalari reinforcements by overtaking the shipyard. Feb 22 – PTR set to stage 5. Fight your way to the Thunder King’s front door! Jaina and Lor’themar will have a ... reckoning.

Question for you Nethaera. With the wording for Stage 5, does this indicate that the Raid itself will not be open until the push has progressed to where we are "at the Thunder Kings front door" making the launch of the raid 2+ weeks after the launch of the patch itself?
As far as I'm aware (last I heard caveat and all that) the Island unlocks do not affect the Raid availability. The Island unlocks will affect some other things (of course.)

Isle of the Thunder King and Isle of Giants
Dave Kosak recently answered a few questions about how the Isle of the Thunder King and Isle of Giants will work.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

PvP and the Global CooldownBut personally I would find it annoying when there on global cooldown, especially with raiding. Makes them feel...........Clunky :P
This is quite true, having these types of abilities on the global cooldown would probably make them feel clunky, on top of that it can waste part of the time that they are active in order to begin utilising them. Also remember that these "Swifty" macros are an all or nothing venture, they are not a guaranteed "I-win" button.

When a player pops all of their cooldowns in one big hit, they are taking the risk of simply wasting them because their opponents go on the defensive. The choice to use a cooldown is exactly that, a choice, and it can backfire. When it backfires, the player using the cooldowns feel they should be compensated because their damage is now lower and they feel their cooldowns need to be up again to be useful. When it works however, the person that's on the other end feels it’s completely unfair, even if they are able to survive it at other times through their own reactions and defensive abilities.

That chance and randomness in fighting people with different skill levels to counter and react to the strategies of another is part of what makes PvP more engaging and exciting. If it were simply about looking at someone’s output versus another person’s output and declaring a winner on potential damage done, then it would make the gameplay stale because you would always be able to know the winner beforehand. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

World of Warcraft Difficulty Changes FeedbackComplexity gives people more to learn, thus prolonging the life of a game because every time you think you've mastered something, there's always something new to learn.
Throw too much complexity to a game, and then suddenly you're not prolonging its life, but rather, overwhelming newcomers.

The people that are usually the most adamant against complexity are the ones that don't have the patience to learn something properly and demand that it be lowered to their level so they can "enjoy everything right off the bat".
As long as you have a challenge at some level on the game (for some it will be Heroic Sha of Fear, for others it will be Shado-Pan Monastery Challenge Mode trying to get gold, for others it'll be Garalon Normal, for others getting to 2.5k rating on PVP... I could go on) what's the harm if things are made more accessible to other players? (As long as you have your challenge)

The LFR is a great example of this, instant gratification with absolutely no commitment required. No preparation required, no need to know what the bosses do, no nothing. Just go in, spam 3-4 buttons and you're done.

And you want this to be encouraged? Christ, modern gamers make the mind boggle.
It's not quite instant gratification (you have to defeat the boss, do the whole run, etc etc), neither on the same level of rewards that players get for completing Normal of Heroic content.

I disagree. Lets look at raids (I didnt do any at MOP, but know them quite well). At Vanilla it took a good guild to clear a new raid several weeks. A medicore guild or casual, some months. Today you join the LFR and a few hours later you have finished the content. Do you see the big difference there? In vanilla you were busy for many weeks, today for several hours.

In vanilla you had a real competition within your faction. You always had to be better than the other players, you had to win a lot and these BG´s did last 1 or 2 hours. Today you have 5 min arena games where a fotm wins. But even if you dont win, you will be a winner at the end of the season. Again, its missing the depth.
That's not depth. Content in vanilla required more preparation, but bosses were much, much easier than today's Heroic content.

The duration of the content doesn't have much to do with the depth of the game. In fact, there's much more depth and complexity in overcoming your opposition on a Rated Battleground today (as strategies keep evolving as the community does and teams can be very coordinated) as opposed to trying to cap Lumber Mill for the 100th time with a bunch of strangers that refuse to stay in their bases and would rather camp the roads.

I dont deny that you can do more things today, but the "how" is what matters and there wow has lost a lot of its depth and fun.
Many of the things that have been mentioned on discussions like this have to do with "the grind" more than the activity itself.

Was Battleguard Sartura a fun encounter in Ahn'Qiraj? Sure, it was.
Was it incredibly fun to farm the resistance sets required for some bosses back then? I'm not so sure there's going to be a common agreement there... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

PvEWould it be too complex to make 10 baseline and increase dungeon diff linearly for every extra player until 25?
Worry that it wouldn't scale that naturally. Would suck to see: You need 12 for boss 1, 10 for boss 2, then 20 for boss 3. (Source)

Why do you think a random token is any less exciting than a random item? That almost sounds sadistic.
Depends perhaps whether you like gift cards or actual gifts for holidays. (Source)

If the rewards don't incentivise 25s, should the next approach be to make it easier to find raiders?
Making it easier to find raiders is great all the way around, but seems like it benefits 10s just as much. (Source)

understand thunderforged but not a fan yet. 522 normal gear is extreme though, no? try 509/513 or something, feels bad at 522.
Can you elaborate on the issue? Why is 522 a bad number? (Source)

Just wondering if you will have to have downed Sha of Fear to enter Trollduar and will the req IL be 500? (for normal mode)
There is no ilevel or sha requirement for normal mode, though it will be harder if you're undergeared of course. (Source)

Has there been any discussions to make an exclusive 10s and 25s? The gear could be the same but the bosses would be different
You would get half as many bosses (or patches would take us twice as long). (Source)

I thought the Justice/Valor point system was the mechanic to ensure even unlucky people got loot from raiding.
In N or H, usually your friends will eventually take pity on you. In LFR, you theoretically could fail every roll forever. (Source)

PvP
IMO, PvP would be better with more casting and interrupting than more instants and immunities. Going to be a tough sell though. (Source)

"Tyrannical Primal Diamond"Please just leave stuff like this out of PvP. Adding a gem like this makes no sense at all!
You'd rather complete the raid quest chain to get a gem? (Source)

I'm confused. I thought you were going away from PvE manditory for PvP? Whats with new meta gems?
The PvP gem won't require raiding. (Source)

Is dueling healthy for the community? It's not balanced, so it serves little purpose.
It's fun for a lot of players. That serves a purpose. (Source)

"also want to reiterate that we see very little PvP participation during the PTR"erm WHAT?you know that we cant PvP on PTR atm
I can't remember how many major patches I've been through. A dozen? This is an eternal issue not a 5.2 issue. (Source)

Why was removing blanket silence reverted? It would have solved a lot of issues with CC and locking out and smooth out thegame
I tried to explain in US PTR forum. This was one of those deals where many high-end players thought we were making a mistake. (Source)

As long as you have a challenge at some level on the game (for some it will be Heroic Sha of Fear, for others it will be Shado-Pan Monastery Challenge Mode trying to get gold, for others it'll be Garalon Normal, for others getting to 2.5k rating on PVP... I could go on) what's the harm if things are made more accessible to other players? (As long as you have your challenge)

Kind of annoyed about hearing that overused "accessible" line. How was the old game inaccessible? How is anyone not allowed to play?

Kind of annoyed about hearing that overused "accessible" line. How was the old game inaccessible? How is anyone not allowed to play?

Your main tank and second tank left to join a Naxx guild? Have fun getting some alts or new recruits into AQ40 to take their place. Now imagine you were a fresh 60 and didn't have the resources of an entire guild backing you up.

Your main tank and second tank left to join a Naxx guild? Have fun getting some alts or new recruits into AQ40 to take their place. Now imagine you were a fresh 60 and didn't have the resources of an entire guild backing you up.

That isn't what inaccessible means.

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize" -Voltaire

Hope there's a glitch in the tooltips or just something wrong with it. Sure it's the first time we see the VP gear on the PTR so they may be some changes there and there.
But I have to point i out, why the F*ck does the Agi users get 20sec uptime, str 15sec and int 10? Aint that just a little unfair? I dont presonally think int classes have a huge advantage of having just int instead of agi..

You're just being difficult now. Fine. It isn't the absolute definition of the word "inaccessible". Let me change that word to, "implausible to finish in a timely and relative manner." It isn't inaccessible for a tank to be pulled through the ranks up to get the resources to ascend to a place to fight in AQ40, no. It's totally accessible. But the entire guild will be twiddling their thumbs for a few weeks, waiting for you to get those items needed. A person wanting to go through that all may, at first glance, find such a task inaccessible (even if it isn't) and Blizzard wanted to try and remove that obstacle so people could go right into the action and work hard at that.

Whether I do or do not agree with this course of action, I can most definitely see where they're coming from. As a game goes on in years it becomes more involved and more complex. Every patch and every expansion adds more to the world .. and to someone first starting out they're thrown into the game with 4 times the amount of Azeroth out there than most of us Vanilla players had. It is a bit overwhelming, I imagine (I fear starting to play EVE Online for this reason). They're trying to weigh the balance between adding more things to the game and removing other things from the game without removing actual content. It's a slippery slope, for sure.

Hope there's a glitch in the tooltips or just something wrong with it. Sure it's the first time we see the VP gear on the PTR so they may be some changes there and there.
But I have to point i out, why the F*ck does the Agi users get 20sec uptime, str 15sec and int 10? Aint that just a little unfair? I dont presonally think int classes have a huge advantage of having just int instead of agi..

First of its PTR and the numbers aren't set in stone, sencond the trinkets probably have different proc chances and/or internal cooldowns and third there are hopefully going to be 2 trinkets for each spec droping in ToT so there is going to be enough to select from.

Patch 5.2 brings us some new gear purchased with Valor Points. Along with the item level 476 gear from the Sunreaver Onslaught and Kirin Tor Offensive we mentioned in the last patch notes, the Shado-Pan Assault will offer a variety of item level 522 gear.

VP 496 gear surely? We already have 489 and 496 which will be discounted 50% when the patch hits.